Keeping abreast of the situation
by thegirl20
Summary: Maura has a question for Jane following episode 2.13.


Maura had that look on her face; the one that Jane knew would lead to an uncomfortable conversation at some point in the very near future. For Jane, that is. Maura rarely found conversations uncomfortable. Right now, Maura had an adorable crease between her eyebrows and she was biting her lip. People less acquainted with the doctor might have assumed that she was concentrating on sewing up Debbie Tibbet's Y incision. (As it turned out, seeing her dead was _not_as satisfying as Jane had imagined it might be in her younger days.) But Jane had seen Maura sew people up like a master tailor while discussing whether she was in the mood for Italian or Chinese that night for dinner. She knew that there was something else at work.

"Maur?"

"Hmmm?"

"You wanna talk about it?"

Snipping the thread she used to close the incision, Maura stood up straight and looked at Jane, her head tilted.

"Whatever's bothering you."

Unlike everybody else in the world ever, Maura Isles was not the kind of person to shrug off questions about her state of mind, or to say she was okay when she wasn't. Maura sighed.

"Do you think Emily's breasts are more pleasant to look at than mine?"

Jane had learned to expect things to come out of left field where Maura was concerned. She had even joked about it being lucky that she was left-handed. But she hadn't expected _that_. Not for the first time, her vocabulary deserted her in the face of Maura's bluntness.

"Huh?"

"Emily's breasts. You've mentioned them a number of times since we attended your reunion, and you did stare at them quite openly while she was wearing that dress."

"Sta-…I did _not_ sta-…" Maura was giving her that skeptical, 'your face isn't displaying symmetry right now, detective' look, so Jane changed tact. "Hey, if I stared it was only because she had them hangin' out for the world to see…like she has done since she sprouted them when we were twelve."

"So you _did_ look?" Maura pressed.

"I…you looked too!" Jane crossed her arms over her chest, pulling herself to her full height and staring Maura down across the table. "And I did not _stare_. I _glanced_. A couple of times."

"And?" Maura's hands were on her hips now.

"And what?" Jane yelled, completely lost now.

"Are they more aesthetically pleasing than mine?"

Jane's eyes dipped to Maura's chest, realizing her mistake a second too late.

"Well, if you have to _look_ before you answer…" Maura turned away, tidying her equipment. Jane sighed heavily and rounded the autopsy table, standing behind Maura.

"I wasn't looking to make a comparison, you're wearing scrubs for Christ's sake. I just looked because we were talking about boobs!"

"Uh…" Both of their heads swiveled to see Frost in the doorway. "I'll uh…come back when you've finished your…conversation."

Jane rolled her eyes at his retreating back. The _least_ he could've done was tell her she was urgently needed upstairs to get her out of the hole she was digging for herself.

"Maura, your breasts are the only breasts I want to look at." Well, _that_ made her sound like a horny teenager. But the smile on Maura's face as she turned back around indicated that maybe she didn't mind.

"Really?"

Jane nodded, reluctant to upset the delicate situation again. Maura placed a hand over her heart.

"Oh Jane, that's so sweet."

Allowing herself a lopsided grin, Jane popped a hip and pulled Maura against her in a loose hug.

"Babe, any time you want me to tell you how much I love your boobs, you just let me know, okay? I could write poetry about them…I could talk about them all night."

"Which would be a nice change from you speaking _to_ them all night."

"Hey!" Jane protested, pinching Maura's side and earning a kiss of apology.

"I'm sorry. I guess…I don't know, seeing you with your "former BFF" maybe just…unsettled me a little. I know that I have no reason to be insecure about my body."

Jane barked a laugh at Maura's lack of modesty. "No reason at all, sweetie."

"I don't know why I even asked you about her breasts. My muscle tone is clearly superior and I have significantly less sagging."

Jane closed her eyes and shook her head. "Who knew that Dr Maura Isles, Chief Medical Examiner, just likes to hear she has nice tits, sometimes?"

She felt Maura tense up and pull away from her slightly. Jane dared to open her eyes and saw that Maura's mouth was hanging open indignantly.

"'_Nice_'? The only adjective you can think of to describe my breasts is '_nice_'?"

_Oh, brother._


End file.
